Someone once said that if you want vengeance dig two graves, one for yourself. I can't think of any movie that encapsulates that quote so perfectly. There's many different forms of vengeance within this movie, avenging your daughter, getting revenge on people who stole your money and your kidney, suicidal revenge out of spite. While all forms of revenge and what it does the characters in this movie is dark, it is sad and tragic that nothing in this movie that happens needed to happen if the main character weren't so naive at the beginning. Later on more tragic things happen as result of the main character's deafness and someone innocent is hurt making this movie quite sad. That contrasts well with the dark comedy South Korean's are able to put in their films that always feels appropriate and adds some levity into this bloody, hyper violent tragedy.
The movie follows Ryu (Park Don-jin) who is a deaf mute man who works in a factory. Ryu's sister (Im Ji-eun) is in need of a kidney transplant. This leads to what is the best example of South Korean dark comedy that finds it's way into a lot of their movies. Their neighbors, or maybe just four boys gathered in a room are masturbating through the wall to the sound of Ryu's sister in pain, though they think she is having sex. The boys are all doing different things to get off like one of them having a nude magazine to taped to the other's back. One of the better examples of the comedy you see in these movies.
The first mistake Ryu makes is going to black market organ dealers who steal his kidney and his severance pay. Just days later they find a real kidney donor but Ryu can no longer afford the operation. After that his radical anarchist girlfriend Cha Yeong-mi (Bae Doona) berates him for doing that. She suggests kidnapping Ryu's boss's daughter and forcing him to pay a ransom. They change plans however when they see a worker for the President of the company, Park Dong-jin (Sung Kang-ho), trying to commit suicide in front of him. After this they kidnap Park's daughter Yu-Sun (Han Bo-bae). All of this comes together relatively quickly and in transitions. It's not some elaborate heist type of moment when they get her. The same thing happens when Park delivers the money.
Spoiler Section
While all of this comes together rather quickly the second half takes its time with the revenge elements. Ryu's sister commits suicide while Ryu gets the ransom money. She didn't know as she was babysitting Yu-sun that she had been kidnapped. I'm still not sure if this was because she was upset that her being sick forced Ryu to do such a thing or if it was out of guilt. Still it is a way of revenge against Ryu as he gotten what he needed to help yet she didn't want it because their morals were compromised. In a tragic scene Ryu goes to bury his sister in rocks near a river. Yu-sun is with him and she goes into the water and drowns as Ryu is unable to hear her. The two innocent people in this story are now dead.
A man near the river sees this and tells Park what he saw. Park eventually figures out who Ryu and Cha Yeong-mi are. At the same time Ryu finds the black market dealers. What adds a sense of villainy to these people even more is that Ryu helped the older woman, presumably the mother of the two men with her medicine before they did his operation and they still stole his money and his kidney. In an insanely violent moment, he kills one of the brothers by stabbing him in the throat with a screwdriver and then beats the other with a baseball bat. He is stabbed by the woman before killing her offscreen. While all this is happening Park goes into their house and electrocutes Cha Yeong-mi to death. This sets up a final confrontation between Ryu and Park that has some of the most violent and cringe-worthy moments I've seen in a movie in a while. I'm normally desensitized to most forms of film violence but slicing the achilles tendon, whether it's in this, Hostel or Pet Sematary always makes me wince. The visual of all that blood in the water that comes from Ryu is really something. Cha Yeong-mi had been protesting when she was taken and promised Park that members of her organization would find him. They do and he is killed at the movie's end.
I like how tragic this story is. All of the characters are flawed in some way yet there really aren't any good guys or bad guys, just innocence in the case of Yu-sun and Ryu's sister. The violence, especially in that scene where Ryu gets his revenge is great. The Korean penchant for dark comedy gives this movie some good levity at times. Bae Doona is stunning. While the movie is a little long a I think some of the confrontations in the second half could have been sped up this stands as one of the better tragic vengeance movies I've seen. Most action movies characters can get away with revenge but this story shows that revenge doesn't lead to anything good. I like that.
Rating; 9/10
Trivia: This is the first film in history to have a sex scene with sign language
No comments:
Post a Comment